Richard Branson

The powerful, ambitious and influential nature of billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson radiates as pop culture currents throughout each of our daily lives. Brandon is thee brainchild of the Virgin Group, and there's a pretty great chance you've used one of his phones, listened to a talented artist on his old record label, flown in one of his airlines, bought music from one of his megastores, or aspired to hop a voyage in one of his new spaceships. In simple terms, this is Sir Richard Branson's world. We're just living in it.

Although he's British, Richard Branson in many ways epitomizes the idea of the American Dream. Besides being a self-made entrepreneurial success story who built his empire completely from the ground up, he has crafted an identity for himself that is equal parts international prestige, grand wealth, fearless innovation, and rugged adventure. If that kind of complete life package isn't enough for the rest of us male mortals to aspire to, we don't deserve to have role models.

Appeal

If Richard Branson weren't so happily married to his second wife, Joan Templeman, there would be concern for his safety, given the herd of beautiful women that would be keen to trample him from every direction. While having a British accent is usually an automatic dealmaker when it comes to attracting women, Branson's breezy accent is only one of the many weapons in his charming arsenal. Besides his dashing demeanor and stoic physical features, he's also blessed with a variety of intangible qualities that most competing suitors to shame, like private Caribbean islands, knighthood, and -- lest we forget -- piles of money. Previously named "Sexiest Businessman" by People, Richard Branson has never let his business interfere with his romantic education, an odyssey that dates all the way back to when his first sexual partner suffered an asthma attack during the act.

Marital loyalty may be keeping Richard Branson off the dating market, but he's not one to shy away from gazing at a beautiful woman or, better yet, presiding over her marriage to a lucky chap in the most unique ways. Previously ordained, Branson married up his Virgin America marketing director on a company flight to Las Vegas, and he already has the wheels in motion to conduct a marriage in orbit when his Virgin Galactic space tours become a reality. Yes, overseeing zero-gravity nuptials are all in a day's work for Richard Branson.

Success

Arguably the most successful high-school dropout in the history of business, Richard Branson overcame his Kryptonite (dyslexia) and became a modern entrepreneurial superhero. With over 400 company branches under his Virgin Group brand, he now holds a personal net worth of over $4 billion, good enough to place him among the UK's top five wealthiest people and the top 260 worldwide.

Having dabbled to date in music sales, music recording, video games, airlines, trains, cola, mobile phones, cosmetics, and movies, there's nothing that Richard Branson isn't up for trying and ultimately excelling at. While Branson understandably deserves considerable credit for his accomplishments, he's quick to point to his team of employees as a major reason for his success. Proving that he's a great boss to go along with being a very rich one, Branson writes monthly letters to each of his employees to offer his encouragement and support while requesting their own ideas for improving the ever-elite and durable Virgin machine.

Through his accumulation of wealth and multi-industry success, Richard Branson has also gained influence. When he talks, people listen and, with that in mind, he's put a great deal of his own energy into a number of humanitarian efforts, such as a peacemaking group of legendary leaders (The Elders), a South African-based entrepreneurial institution (Branson School of Entrepreneurship), an AIDS and health initiative (Virgin Healthcare Foundation), and an anti-nuclear weapons campaign (Global Zero). He also made a recent commitment to put $3 billion towards the global warming crisis and use industry profits from his transportation companies to research alternative and eco-friendly energy sources.

Richard Branson Biography

As the grandson of a High Court judge and son of a barrister, Richard Branson was born into a family that valued unity and independence. He learned the latter at the age of 4, when his mother dropped him off several miles from the family home and asked him to find his own path back alone. While a neighbor ended up helping him find his way home that day, Branson had more difficult challenge ahead of him when he attended Scaitcliffe School and Stowe School. Though he found sports -- especially swimming -- to be rewarding, he suffered from dyslexia, which led to poor grades and an unceremonious exit from school at the age of 16.

Richard Branson's dyslexia was an academic setback, but his poor results in school did not reflect his professional ambitions. Through his own accord, he took it upon himself as a teenager to pursue a pair of entrepreneurial initiatives by selling Christmas trees and budgerigars. While neither one of these was successful, Branson's third try was the charm. Already possessing a strong inkling for both journalism and activism, Branson blended both ideals into Student, a publication he co-founded in 1968 with his friend Jonny Gems. Featuring cover art designed by Beatles' artist, Peter Blake, the debut edition was a success and gave Branson the outlet that eventually sent him into the music industry and beyond.

richard branson creates virgin records

In the wake of changes by the British government to the retail pricing of records, young Richard Branson felt that a music mail-order element would be the logical next step for his thriving publication. Having sold discounted albums independent from the trunk of his car, he next essayed it as a mail-order add-on to Student and found very quickly that the demand for music outweighed the revenue generated from the publication itself. As a result, Branson opened his own music shop called Virgin Records and Tapes, having chosen that name because he and his employees were so fresh in the music industry. After surviving an early court dispute, Branson watched as his company helped usher in a new approach to selling music in the era of mass-market retail discounts. In time, over 100 other Virgin Megastores opened around the world.

The creation of Virgin Records inspired Richard Branson to add a new music label (also named Virgin Records) to go along with his existing music selling practices. The label was born in 1972, and on a private estate that he had purchased with his business partner, Branson created a recording studio and signed Mike Oldfield as one of his early clients. The ensuing 1973 album Tubular Bells became an instant favorite, and artists like the Sex Pistols, Human League and Culture Club soon joined the fray, paving the way for the record label to become international and attract even bigger names such as Genesis, Roy Orbison, Janet Jackson, and Lenny Kravitz in years to come.

richard branson creates virgin atlantic airways and virgin mobile

Through the 1980s, Richard Branson hit his stride by successfully diversifying his Virgin business portfolio in a variety of new directions. The 1983 launch of Virgin Games, a video-game design branch and Virgin Vision, a broadcasting initiative, were logical extensions of the Virgin name, but his involvement in 1984's Virgin Atlantic Airways partnership represented a bold move for Branson from entertainment into air travel. Confident that he could make the airline profitable within a year, the entrepreneur did just that through its initial London to New York service and subsequent expansion into the Caribbean, Australia, Asia, and Africa. In time, the airline became a top 10 favorite for UK travelers and the first to use the 440 seat-capacity Airbus A340-600, complete with extra amenities like seat-back televisions (another airline first) and industry-leading flat beds.

A clearly successful entrepreneur, Richard Branson used his professional wealth and status to fulfill his own need for personal adventure. His 1986 voyage aboard the Virgin Atlantic Challenger II earned him a record-breaking crossing of the Atlantic. A year later, he replicated the journey in a hot-air balloon, becoming the first person to do so. Following his 1991 record-breaking crossing of the Pacific, Branson added to his thrill-seeking accomplishments years later by traveling the English Channel in record time.

Through the rest of the 1990s, Richard Branson continued his successful business ways. Virgin Trains, Virgin Publishing and Virgin Cosmetics were a few of his initiatives into travel, books and skin care, while Virgin Mobile brought Branson and company into wireless communication. Putting a youthful stamp on the mobile industry, Virgin Mobile was launched in 1999 and emphasized a contract-free consumer experience and served consumers from countries like Australia, the United States, the UK, Canada, and France, proving that Branson's range of success was limitless.

richard branson creates virgin galactic and virgin racing

A longtime fan of science fiction -- especially Star Trek -- Richard Branson took his adoration of science fiction to ultra-ambitious heights by announcing the development of Virgin Galactic, his latest addition to the Virgin family in 2004. With the idea of flying the paying public 360,000 feet above Earth into a zero-gravity experience for the right price, Branson spearheaded the development of two carrier aircrafts and five suborbital spacecrafts and watched as hundreds of potential stargoers lined up to pay seat deposits for a potential launch in 2013. One potential traveler who asked not to pay: Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner.

Richard Branson closed out the 2000s with the health-themed Virgin Health Bank, the deluxe North American airline Virgin America and the renewable energy initiative Virgin Fuel before entering the sports world in 2010 with Formula 1 circuit team, Virgin Racing. No stranger to show business thanks to past cameos on TV shows like Friends and Baywatch, and in films like Superman Returns and Casino Royale, Richard Branson made a Virgin mark on the 2011 film industry as a producing partner for the Bradley Cooper-Robert De Niro hit Limitless -- also an apt title for Sir Richard Branson's continued and seemingly endless capacity for success.